


Having A Cuddle

by bofursboffing (agggron)



Category: The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Absolute fluff, Fluff, M/M, the fluffiest of all fluffs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 18:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agggron/pseuds/bofursboffing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fili and Ori have a tramp through the woods surrounding Rivendell, and go on a terrible, perilous journey! ...which leads to cuddles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Having A Cuddle

No one had wanted to go exploring with Fili after the massive dinner the elves had fed them on what surely must have been the hundredth day they'd stayed in Rivendell (though really it hadn't even been a week yet). Even Kili had grown complacent and fatter with all the good treatment - or, at least, that's what Fili had told him in an attempt to get him on his feet.  
  
It hadn't worked, though, and so Fili had started to tramp away dejectedly until he'd been stopped by a measured but eager voice from somewhere around his elbow. All right, that was unkind - Ori wasn't that much shorter than he was, but with the way he was always hunched over the journal he carried with him constantly, it certainly seemed that way. As it was, Fili had found himself a companion, and off the two had gone to explore the corners of Rivendell they had yet to see.  
  
It was slow-going. Ori stopped every few moments to bend and squint at some shrub or flower at their feet. Fili himself didn't have much interest in botany, and thought that dwarves, by right, should only be interested in giant boulders and precious metals hidden within them.  
  
"Get any closer," Fili remarked, when Ori leaned particularly close to some yellow-petaled thing with strange orange stalks coming from the middle of it, "and you'll fall in." That earned a squeak of an apology from Ori, and the two were on their way again. Fili was grinning to himself, half because of the comment he'd made and half because he'd taken notice of the endearing way Ori's eyes crossed slightly when he was examining something right under his round nose.  
  
In time, the sky above them began to darken. They had walked far and had discovered many things, as the wilderness around where the elves had settled in their delicate buildings and well-groomed gardens was deceptively expansive.  
  
"We should head back, Fili suggested, catching sight of a few stars in the sky, though it was still a pleasant blue. "They'll have dinner without us, which means we won't get anything but the greens." Fili turned in place, his large boots - far too cumbersome for a place like this, it seemed - crunching fallen leave and twigs and no doubt trampling underfoot some precious weed that would have delighted Ori endlessly. Narrowing his eyes, he looked in the direction from which he'd thought they'd come... but now that he'd stopped to glance around, he realized that he had no idea how to get back to Rivendell proper.  
  
"Of course, the elves wouldn't have paths to walk on," he muttered to himself. "They just float on the treetops." With that, Fili turned to Ori, who, it appeared, was also trying to figure out how they'd gotten there. He kept glancing down at that book of his, too, so Fili strode forward and stuck his long nose into it. "Doesn't look like a map to me," he observed, then leaned back to tap the pages with his fingertips. "Or did you just write down which way we turned? 'Left at the pink flower, right at the spindly fern?'"  
  
When Ori leaned over the journal as if to make sure he _hadn't_ written such a thing, Fili quickly lifted his hand and caught Ori's nose with his crooked finger. The other dwarf looked taken aback by the surprise, so much so that it drew a chuckle from Fili. "I'm joking, Ori," he said, and only grinned wider when Ori joined in the laughter. "Come on, I think it was this way." And then the two started heading in quite the wrong direction entirely.  
  
A thing that quickly became apparent when they reached the shores of a pleasantly bubbling river. In front of them was a gently arching, finely crafted wooden bridge, and the two of them walked onto it, their heavy boots making loud, hollow noises on the planks. "I don't remember passing over this..." Ori said. And right he was.  
  
Fili put his hands on his hips and pressed his lips together, looking up and down the river as far as he could see. "That, my dear Ori, is because we didn't pass over it." With a sigh, he began to turn around to head back - but he was thrown off-balance by Ori, who had quickly moved to the knee-high rail to look at the river below. Fili caught himself, brows lifting as he turned to see what in the world had been so important that Ori had almost plunged him into the drink.  
  
"I've never seen a fish like that!" Ori exclaimed, and a slow, fond smile came onto Fili's face. A fish. Nothing life-or-death. Just a fish. What else should he have expected from a dwarf like Ori? Fili shook his head and parted his lips to make a comment - but he was cut short when Ori let out a small cry and stumbled over the rail and into the water below.  
  
Quickly, Fili ran to the edge of the bridge, almost falling in himself in his haste. Below, Ori was splashing around and making enough of a racket that all of Rivendell would hear, and of course Fili feared he might drown - a fear made even more real and terrifying when Ori cried out, "I can't swim! I'm drowning!" That was enough to send Fili over the edge of the bridge, and he braced himself for deep water--  
  
And so found himself extremely confused when his feet hit the bottom of the river, the water sloshing somewhere around his calves at its highest. Letting out the breath he'd been holding in a short laugh, Fili splashed over to where Ori was still struggling and grabbed the dwarf by both arms, hauling him to his feet. "You're fine," Fili said kindly enough, though he couldn't keep the amusement out of his voice. All he wanted to do was snicker; the relief flooding through him was enough to make him lightheaded.  
  
Bending down, Fili reached out and picked up Ori's journal, which was floating along at a leisurely pace. It had been floating on both covers, pages open to the sky, and so all the notes he'd taken and the drawings he'd so painstakingly put into it were mercifully untouched. Ori reached out with shaking hands to take the book, quickly closing it and clutching it to him. "Thank you," he muttered, his face an unbelievable shade of red beneath what little beard he had. Fili clapped him on the back and then grabbed the other dwarf's unoccupied hand, using that grip to tug him toward the shore.  
  
Their long and perilous journey continued, and was fraught with difficulties along the way. Once, Ori's cloak became so tangled in a branch (mostly due to his flailing about) that Fili had to take at least _half a minute to get it free._ And once, a rabbit crossed their path, and it was _so_ adorable that it threatened Fili's dwarfishness to the point that he felt as though he needed to chew on a handful of gravel to feel himself again. Those instances were the worst of what they suffered.  
  
"Well, we're lost. right and good," Fili said after they'd walked perhaps half an hour away from the river. "Maybe we should go in a different direction. What do you think, Ori?"  
  
Fili was looking through the trees when a reply came, but Ori's voice was such that Fili had to whirl around, his brows drawn together in concern. "I-I th-thin-think you're r-r-r--... right." And there stood poor Ori, shivering from head to toe, how long Fili had no idea. He himself had forgotten about his wet boots almost the moment he'd walked from the river's water, but it seemed Ori was suffering greatly from his own dip.  
  
Immediately, Fili was divesting himself of the fur-lined coat he wore. "Durin's beard, Ori, why didn't you say anything?" he scolded, though gently. Quickly, the coat was thrown over Ori's shoulders - it was a chore to get his arms into the sleeves with how hard he was shivering - and Fili's belt buckled tightly around Ori's waist. Fili felt fine and comfortable in the cooler night air, but then again, he hadn't fallen entirely into the river, whereas all of Ori's clothes must have been soaked through. Taking pity on the poor dwarf, Fili drew him to what looked like a comfortable patch of grass at the base of a tree and pulled him down, wrapping his arms around him and leaning back against the tree trunk.  
  
"Here, we'll warm up," Fili said, and though initially Ori had stiffened in his embrace, the smaller dwarf soon melted into it, and seemed to burrow toward the warmth it provided. "Just until you've dried off, and then we'll follow our noises to dinner." Even as he spoke, Fili's stomach growled. He'd been eating far too well in this place, that was for sure.  
  
After a short pause, Ori piped up. "I'm s-sorry to have caused tr-trouble," he muttered, and Fili's arms tightened just slightly around him.  
  
"Nothing to be sorry for," he assured the other dwarf. Then he shrugged a shoulder. "I was thinking about having a cuddle anyway. You just gave me the means." When Ori looked up at him in surprise, Fili couldn't conceal a playful grin. If there was anything he was not, it was subtle. And how would he ever have been able to resist snuggling up to Ori? With all his knitted mittens and trailing scarves and big eyes and sideways smile. No, stronger dwarves than Fili surely would have given in!  
  
There was silence for a few moments in which Fili simply rubbed Ori's back, hoping to warm him. After those few moments, a short snore cut through the quiet, loud enough that Ori woke himself up with it, jumping in Fili's arms. The blond dwarf raised his brows and looked down at Ori, who was blinking blearily and glancing around as though surprised to find himself where he was. "Have a good nap?" Fili asked, and Ori only muttered an 'excuse me,' as if it had been a belch. Wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last time Fili smiled fondly at him, that was certain.  
  
"How long do you think it'll be before they declare us dead?" Ori said gloomily, after some more time had passed and he'd stopped shivering.  
  
With a short laugh, Fili lifted the arm around Ori's back and ruffled his hair, though instead of withdrawing that hand, it remained, fingers running through the bluntly-cut hair and fingertips tracing the braids in it. "You think Nori and Dori would leave you out here to die? They're better brothers than that."  
  
"Kili might not worry. He'll only eat your share of the food." It took Fili a moment to realize that Ori had made a joke, and when he glanced down in surprise, he found that Ori was already looking at him, his expression a mixture of terrified and hopeful. And when Fili's face finally split into a wide grin, there was such a look of relief on Ori's face that it only made Fili guffaw harder. In a bout of confidence he'd gotten from the successful joke, no doubt, Ori wiggled a little closer, and Fili could only let him.  
  
Soon enough, Ori fell asleep again, and Fili pressed his cheek to the top of the other dwarf's head. Not a bad way to spend the evening, in his opinion; he liked taking care of people, had been taking care of Kili all his life - but this was a little different. There was a queer sort of warmth in him that he hadn't felt before, and certainly not with Kili. It was with these thoughts running through his head that Fili closed his eyes, and soon drifted to the same dreamland that had captured Ori.  
  
Once the others had noticed they'd gone missing, a party of elves - who knew the land far better than the dwarves, of course, and could be of more help - had been sent after them. It didn't take long for the two to be found, the both of them asleep, Ori's arms wrapped around Fili's middle and Fili's own embrace keeping Ori close. It was with soft, tinkling laughter that they were awoken, and told that their companions were looking for them - a statement at which Fili simply grunted before tugging the other dwarf close to him again and muttering about getting another fifteen minutes of sleep, if the elves didn't have some mandate against naps, thank you very much.

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever Tolkienverse fanfic, and it's this. I wrote it to fill a prompt over at the Hobbit Kink Meme: 'Somehow Fili and Ori get separated from the rest of the party and they have to cuddle for warmth.' Clearly it diverted a bit, but what're you gonna do.
> 
> Also, I didn't know I shipped these two until I wrote this. What do you know.


End file.
